He is not quite alive, having been reanimated to serve in thrall to the Lich King, nor is he truly dead orundead. He and his brethren are at least somewhat mortal, as some have not survived the Lich King’s war efforts. So he’s understandably confused about his existence, and the suggestion to focus on obedience to the will of the Lich King and the tasks at hand undoubtedly help efforts to ignore exisistential musing.

All his homies agree he really looks good in black, and he’s got a really cool hat.

Even when he will eventually break free of the Lich King’s will, as foretold by this oracle, he will still serve Death, and be a slave to his eternal hunger for killing and destruction. He will turn his blue, glowing eyes to the North, pushing forward with his kin, looking to bring death to the Lich King. …who is already dead. Sort of. And who wields Death for fun and profit.

Death Knights aren’t exactly the sharpest cutlery in the rack, but they may well be the angriest and the angstiest. (Three Panel Soul is highly recommended.)

———-

Short story long, the Death Knights are a mishmash of most emo and necro tropes, complete with big old honkin’ swords that glow like Azerothian lowriders, proving their utter dominance over all things edgy and cool.

Like any other WoW character, they enter the world with a nicely done flyby with a narrative to convey some backstory, and then they look around for questgivers with gold exclamation marks over their heads, positively itching to go kill stuff, but unlike other characters, they kill stuff with Death!!! (Or a big old honkin’ sword, diseases, and maybe a pet Ghoul or three.) Of course, they look better than other newbie characters, as the beneficiaries of years of refinement of Blizzard’s art assets and rendering engine, and they enter the world in full plate armor, at level 55, far more dangerous than a level 1 character.

The lore and art on these Death Knights is very tightly designed, and very well rendered. I make light of it a bit, but that’s because I’m not a fan of the theme of the Death Knights. As an artist in the game industry, I can look at what they are doing with these guys and applaud their art direction, animation and the very strong story and theme that Blizzard has developed, and I give credit where it’s due; the Death Knights are among the best designed characters in the WoW universe, both artistically and mechanically. I personally find the overbearing (even if occasionally lampoonish) focus on Death and Destruction to be distasteful, but I’ll readily concede that even that is extremely well presented. (Is it too punny to give Blizzard brownie points for execution?)

That said, the Death Knights do get bonus points for being honest. Any WoW character embarks in the world as an agent of death, with a long career of slaughter in front of them. Sure, it’s handwaved aside by saying that Druids are “maintaining the balance of nature”, or some other way of villainizing various critters and humanoids (it’s a war, after all, right?), but mechanically, the bulk of the game is about killing stuff. (A point my wife has remarked about on more than one occasion, and really, from the outside, it is pretty silly.) Death Knights know what they are all about, and they embrace it wholeheartedly. That’s not a virtue, especially since they are just out for revenge and killin’, rather than any noble goal, but at least they are honest about what they do.

So what? Do the Death Knights shake off the “monster pinata” complacency that most of us have slipped into? Does it really make a difference when your “kill ten rats” quest turns into “kill 100 soldiers”? Should it? It’s just a game, right?

Hyperbolic German reactions aside (as Longasc points out, German leaders are coming down hard on violent gaming), desensitization is real. The Death Knights are told to kill human characters who will cower and beg for their lives, innocent people who would otherwise be content to see to their village’s need for wood or hay. It’s all very much in theme for the Death Knights, and Blizzard has carefully crafted the experience to give a sense of what a Death Knight’s existence is all about. Does any of that sink in as players just go about, completing quests and killing stuff? Do they think about it, or just go on with the business of prepping a new tank for raids? Do they care even if it does sink in?

Again, it’s extremely well crafted, but I find the subject matter doesn’t sit well with me.

If Blizzard would take this level of work and turn it to a more noble pursuit, I’d be more impressed overall. Of course, they aren’t really trying to impress me, so I doubt they care. That’s just my take on things.

As I’ve noted before, the DK starting quests are very nicely designed, with a clear sense of progression, great spatial location, excellent art direction, and smart teaching mechanics. (The flying eyeball recon quest at the start is a fantastic way to show people around in a low stress manner.) Players don’t get a “this is an optimal DPS rotation” tutorial, but jumping in and playing a DK is a very smooth and forgiving experience. (Ironically so, perhaps, since such would seem to benefit newbies more than vets who have qualified for DKs by having a high level character somewhere.)

The Phasing technology gives a nice sense of progress along a timeline, and really sells the storytelling. It’s still not Hemingway or Shakespeare, but it’s a LOT better than what any other new character will see in WoW.

The Runes and Runic Power system is an interesting mutation of a mating between the Rage and Rogue Combo mechanics, and I found that it nicely promoted optimization of DPS rotations just by how it works, considering the cooldowns of runes and the gradual building of Runic Power. It seems complex at a glance, and it certainly has the potential to be so, but getting up and running with it was a smooth experience.

So, I’ll add my voice to the choir saying that the Death Knight design and starting area is awesome, and that Blizzard really did a great job on them. I won’t sing the praises during the chorus, when the theme is embraced, though. I’m very glad that I had the chance to see a bit of the DK experience first hand, and I have some good screenshots to study… but I can’t honestly say that the experience was a pleasant one, on balance. It was downright uncomfortable, and not something that I’d really want to do again. (Which is not unlike the Arthas novel, actually… well crafted, unappealing characters and theme. It works for some, certainly, just not me.)

The Death Knight experience offers some of the best work that Blizzard has done to date, and if dark magics, necromancy, Death and Destruction don’t bother you, the DK starting zones may well be the best part of the game.

A final note, though… I do wish that Blizzard would turn their eye to crafting this sort of experience for single player games. If this sort of thing, complete with Phasing and a renewed focus on storytelling, is the future of the MMO genre (including SWTOR), I’m really going to be miffed that they didn’t just make a brilliant single player game. More and more, I’m convinced that storytelling just isn’t meant to be a major component of MMO design. Players should be telling their own stories, and all that effort crafting great narrative really should be in single player games, or even films. But that’s another post…

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Just a sidenote, the mentioned term “killer games” is exclusively reserved for first person shooters.

So feel free to hack and slash away with edgy tools, especially in MMORPGs. But shooting someone with a rifle in any shooter will probably turn you into a monster.

Back to DK’s!
Runes and runic power are what makes Death Knight nonstop killers. In WoW and other games, casters usually have a starter pool of mana/energy that slowly gets depleted. Warriors usually have to slowly build up rage/adrenaline to get rolling.

Death Knights have both: Runes to start out hacking and slashing right away, and get runic power they can use on abilities while runes reload.

This is why they make other classes look old AND… feel free to ignore this, this is getting funny/cynical … because of this , they have little to no downtime and no time for socialization! 😉

They are indeed a very fun class to play, my Warlock could have used some of their gimmick abilities. Maybe the opposite of the death grip/pull, for smashing the eternal bane of Warlocks, Rogues, against walls or other hard objects. Or down a cliff…

I thoroughly enjoyed this article! 🙂 I’ve been dabbling around with a DK alt but never really played them seriously. Unfortunately I just can’t buy into the whole ‘dark knight’ type of stuff, it just seems far too cliché to me. I must prefer the idea of a fallen Paladin or something a little more interesting. Still, DKs can start at lvl 55 so that’s something they have got going for them 🙂

I agree, the Death Knight class is well designed, looks great, and is fun to play- or so I’m told.

While I really wanted to start a DK, I found the WOW universe completely saturated with this class and found myself wanting to be different by remaining the same. The odd thing is that the melee/caster combination is typically the class I have found the most enjoyable in other games like Guild Wars, Oblivion, and Titan Quest.

I think your wife and my wife should get together and go scrapbooking 😉 My wife tried WOW for about 4-8 hours. She logged in, began killing things, asked if there was anything else to do, to which I replied “sure, go kill more things.” She didn’t find that option very appealing.

Off the topic a bit, I hope the German govt doesn’t ban violent games because of the actions of a couple of psychopaths. I’ve been playing violent games for over 10 years and I’ve never felt the urge to shoot up my school or place of employment. When society begins making laws based on the actions of a couple of disturbed individuals, everyone suffers.

Agreed, Wolfgang. Unfortunately, government loves to “do something”, even when leaving it alone would be best.

I think our wives would like scrapbooking. That’s half of what my wife uses the computer for; that and FaceBook. 🙂

Spitfire, I think that you could play them as fallen Paladins; the intro tells you that you were once a force for good, but died on the field and the Lich King raised you… or something like that. …but yes, the cliche is strong with these guys. At least they don’t go to the Vader well, that would be too much.

Longasc, Oi, I forgot the Death Grip! That little toy alone is worth tinkering with a DK. Nothing like grabbing that pesky ‘caster and pulling them over to broadsword range. Kerwhack!

Good call on the “no downtime” mechanical analysis. You’re spot on, and it really does make them fun to play.

Great post. I love how you pick up on things I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed.

I had a similar reaction to playing Chaos in Warhammer Online. It was well put together, fun to play, but wow those storylines were so very very very dark, and in a nasty vicious kind of evil way. I just couldn’t stand it in the end. I hated all the characters so much that I really didn’t want to play them. I’m sure the writers really did capture the spirit of chaos as it’s presented in Warhammer.

And I wish Blizzard would put together a kickass single player game too (*coff* Diablo III maybe? I have very unrealistic expectations for that game 🙂 ).

A book I read a little while ago and absolutely loved was Banewreacker by Jacqueline Carey. That book and it’s sequel, Godslayer are about the “evil” perspective on a great war as found in Lord of the Rings. Except the evil side isn’t all mustache-twirling caricatures, it shows a darker side that has a life of its own and how the “good” side ignores it quite blithely in its quest to “vanquish the darkness”. The downside is that the plot is entirely predictable, but it’s a great read to see how you can show the dark side in a story without making the reader wonder how the hell anyone would ever support them.

If Blizzard could have told a story like this, it would be a lot more interesting. Instead you get a “lolz i r evilz!”

One thing I didn’t like about the DK start was the huge blah, blah, blah ending for the area. It offered no meaningful input on my part, it prevented any real action on my part (couldn’t even hit the “good guys”), and devolved into a cutscene at the end. Probably game some Warcraft lore geeks a nerdgasm, but it made me wonder how long it was going to take.

I also wasn’t overly fond of DKs as an überclass. I played a Feral Druid extensively in TBC, and I was frustrated when Blizzard kept trying to force Bear tanking and Cat DPS into completely separate roles. Yet, here comes the DK who can swap between tanking an DPS rather easily. I ended up going Boomkin so I could have the easy-mode of ranged DPS instead of trying to figure out how to keep my flexibility.

Anyway, I haven’t played WoW in a while. I couldn’t even be bothered to finish the single-player content, let alone get into group and raid content, on my main. My DK left the intro area and sat in Ironforge working up bits and pieces of inscription to see how that worked.

Spinks, as you might guess, I’m not a fan of the Diablo mythos theme either… but yes, I’m hoping they do a great job with that one too.

I never played WAR, but I suspected that Chaos would be like that, so they never interested me. It really does make me think that WoW’s approach of “Orcs aren’t eeevil, they were manipulated and are now reforming” was a wise one.

Brian, I can understand your Druid concerns. Not having played in the higher levels, I can’t speak from first hand experience, but I do love Druids, and I do follow the game, and yes, I saw that Bear/Cat splitting effort as annoying.

Speaking of the cutscene… I’ve come to believe that while I love some great storytelling, in an MMO, where I’m either looking to play with others or blaze through levels to access gated content, story just feels like something that gets in the way.

I still find the morality of the Death Knight very questionable which I’ve stated numerous times on my blog. It’s still the only class to date that forces a moral alignment — which I find repugnant — upon the player who chooses to play one.

Let me be honest, I officially hate this class. In every way it violates notions of class balance (remember the tank mage anyone?), laughable lore, it starts at level 55, the free blue gear and epic mount, it’s subsequent overpopulation on every server. Shall I continue?

Yes Blizzard knows their target audience all too well; young males who embrace a culture of death and who act as if they are invincible.

Although over the top, I agree that the entire Death Knight experience was well done in terms of story, art and execution (no pun intended) but that’s because Blizzard knew the DK would be the center piece of the expansion. I’d like to see the number of man hours and budget that was expended on creating the entire experience, I’m sure it was enormous.

Given enough time and money Blizzard could polish a turd and make it into something special.

I still maintain that the redemption of the Death Knight and the Ebon Hold’s integration back into the Alliance and Horde is phony and unbelievable. There is no way that a DK could still be harnessing the power of evil from Arthas if they had broken away from him. Where is the power coming from then?

Also where is the quest of redemption for the Death Knight? All you do is pay a short visit to either Thrall of the Stormwind King and *presto* you are back in their good graces. “Hey you know all that genocide you were responsible for? Those women and children you murdered? All is forgiven might Death Knight. Go fight for the Alliance now!”

When I made my DK I purposely took him to the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind where I was greeted with respect the the brother as I entered. Right…

The people who write lore at Blizzard have demonstrated time and time again that they have absolutely no understanding of how good and evil works that would be believable to a theologian. Just read the account of every “good” character that somehow gets “possessed” by an evil force — it’s all the same unconvincing, amateurish, comic book rubbish to say the least. But when you think of the target audience you suddenly understand why Blizzard is able to get away with murder all the time.

It will be interesting to see the treatment they give their next hero class.

Wolfshead, I am quite sure the class will be announced as having 1. “an epic starting experience” 2. balanced.

I guess it will be a healer or healer/DPS hybrid, as the tanking role is already filled.

And it will be even better, they introduced immense power creep with WOTLK, and they promote their new classes immensely.

“Balanced” is crap and just a lie. Death Knights are not balanced. They are a farmers wet dream. They can tank and dps at the same time.

They can fill dps and tank roles and are not really in need to specialize on one build for this or that role. They cannot heal others, but they have self-heal abilities.

The ever popular damage meters show me that a DPS class like Warlock/Mage has a very hard time to outdamage an AoE tanking Death Knight who has some self-heal and damage abilities, often within one build, no need to switch.

Death Knight + Paladin, who got a similar (over)buff just before WOTLK with patch 3.x are the most popular and succesful team.

The statistics for most played classes and the arena team statistics speak volumes: Cleary this class is popular.

And it is probably not only because of the tons of gimmicks and extras it got, or the epic starting experience. 😛

Wolfshead, I’m convinced that the VAST majority of game devs AND players don’t understand good and evil. They don’t care to. They just want power fantasies with no consequences. It’s really undershooting the potential that games have.

Longasc, “should” is the key word there. I think that too many MMO devs have accepted as fact the notion that an MMO has to be about DIKU progression and the sub model, and just work on implementation rather than challenging those base assumptions. “Long term” in that context isn’t so much about sustainable business practices and world design, it’s about getting people hooked and giving them more grinds with more carrots.

Mudflation and power creep are inevitable in such a system, and the logical way to frame that in a positive light is to purport that the system is effectively infinite (no such thing as too much power), and let people go nuts chasing ever-increasing numbers, which they equate with success.

It’s something we see in society at large, too, not just games. The quest for ever-bigger cars, houses or trophy wife bustlines drives a LOT of economic consumption, and has warped the world economy, ethics and morals.

Perhaps we’ll see a change in MMO design as the world is forced to embrace a more austere vision of “success”, including more “joy in the journey”. Until then, people will continue to think “bigger is better” simply because they want to believe. Anything less would mean that their efforts to Achieve Bigger were in error, and *that* notion, that they’ve been wrong, is a very scary thing to face.

[…] their foes, but at least something is going on in that vast plain by the Tauren starting village. I wrote about the Death Knight starting areas a while back, and it seems to me that Blizzard has learned that having NPCs doing […]